Osteopaths listen to their patients with all their senses. We look at you, but also through you; we listen with our ears, but also with our instincts; we feel with our hands, but also see with them; it’s a sense that grows with each year we practice.
When Sam came to the clinic, she was complaining about numerous joint pains in different parts of her body, and needed help getting back to feeling 100% again. During our chat before the hands-on treatment, I learned that she also had tension headaches, some bloating in her guts, was waking up a couple of times a night, and has been consuming more sweets and coffee lately.
Without asking her more questions about her personal life (kids, long hours at work, if she was a business owner, last time she had holidays…) her body was already telling me she might be overtired. How do I know that?
Here is what every body does when it is tired:
We talked with Sam during the treatment about when the symptoms started, because it is the cause and needs to be assessed if we want to truly treat the problem. She said that times might have been busy at work and home lately, but that it was “good busy”.
Then we talked about the timeline of her symptoms (because, once again, whatever happens first is what we need to treat, not what followed). After scratching her head, Sam managed to figure out that her knee pain started, then her lower back pain, then her neck, and finally her shoulder. Now think about it, it almost looks as if her pain moved up her body over time. We call this an ascending chain of dysfunction. They are the most common paths of dysfunction, since gravity compresses us down while our body tries to resist it upward while we are sitting, standing, and moving.
As you’ve probably already guessed, we treated her knee first (it was her first symptom), and its influence on the rest of her body. We also set up some homework for her to improve the quality of her life in order to help her body refuel itself more efficiently than with the coffee or chocolate.
So, the next time your body is “talking” to you in the language of discomfort, try to investigate why, and you might be surprised with what you find!
If you would like, you can book an Osteopathic therapy appointment with me here or by calling the clinic at 403-910-1133.